Sunday, 26 February 2012

Hello everyone, Happy New Year! Yes I know I'm slow but I'm getting there! I would really like to get back into blogging, so I'll try and get back here much more often from now on!

I have a large swift/yarn winder for knitting yarns, which is electrified thank goodness, but have always wound my embroidery silks and wools by hand on a niddy noddy. Age catching up on me, I am finding that my shoulder can't cope with winding as well as it used to and I've been chuntering for a while that it would be good to have an attachment to a spinning wheel. Louet used to do one I am sure for their wheels and some antique wheels actually come with them, but when I started searching for one I drew a blank! There is also the problem of the size of skein - they had to remain the size they are now when using my niddy noddy, the display stand is already designed for them!

So John has taken my Louet S15 wheel and created a skein winder attachment that is the size I need for my embroidery threads. It slots into place instead of the flyer, the drive band is the same and to help me there is a yarn counter arm that feeds from the swift holding the hank into the skein winder.

Simples!!

It is designed to fit my wheel, and would probably fit several other Louet wheels because they are so similar.

If I decide I want to do some spinning I simply remove the winder and put the flyer back in place. The counter part is totally separate, in fact it doesn't necessarily need to be there at all!

All I have to do now is sit down comfortably and gently treadle (even whilst watching TV!) to produce far more saleable skeins than I ever could before!

He's so pleased with his design he'll make them as an attachment kit if anyone is interested.